Millennium Witch

After a brief encounter with the two "lords," Yvette found that the Spider Woman inside seemed relatively easy to communicate with; at least she would occasionally answer Yvette's questions, unlike the Mountain Whale and the Fish Man. The former couldn't speak, and the latter, like her, was taciturn and didn't like to talk. After several encounters, no useful information was obtained.

Finally, Yvette also managed to glean from the Spider Woman through conversation that above the three lords, there was a "commander" loyal to the monarch, namely the sixth-stage aberration, who was also its direct superior.

As for where this leader is, whether it is in the center of Cookes, Yvette has no idea.

However, out of caution, she would assume that the commander was in the city center. So, after harassing the Spider Woman for a while and consuming about half of her mana, she would quickly flee far away. This was partly to prevent the Fish Man and the Mountain Whale from coming to their aid, and partly because she did not want to be targeted by a sixth-stage commander-level powerhouse.

……

Time flies, half a year has passed, the weather has changed from cold to warm, and it's July.

As a snowy region in the northern part of Kuroshio Island, the area around Kux is very similar to Northern Europe in many ways.

After the snow melted, the rock strata were exposed, gleaming with a cold, iron-gray light. Grasses spread, merging with the moss-covered human remains. Further afield, on the mountain peaks, white glaciers, perpetually frozen, pierced the azure sky like ice blades.

In the morning, on her return from Cux, Yvette saw some puppets studying how to herd sheep.

The sheep raised here are white sheep caught from the mountains, with fluffy wool, looking like giant cotton candy on the meadow from a distance.

The reasons for herding sheep are twofold: first, to provide a more stable food supply for a certain ferocious camel; and second, encouraged by Bingyu, many local puppets also felt that being a shepherd was a good role model, allowing them to better emulate humans of a certain era and thus improve their "cultivation."

“I’m sick of eating mutton every day.” Dugrabi, however, was completely unimpressed and complained as he saw Yvette approaching.

Over the course of more than four years, this black dragon had also figured out the meaning of many Black Tide languages ​​on its own. However, it was very reserved and almost never spoke, always playing the role of a fierce and evil dragon. So, apart from the little magic puppet Jasmine who often played with it, none of the other magic puppets noticed this, not even Ice Rain.

Of course, part of the reason is that, in its view, these alchemical creations are not even as good as humans, so how could they be qualified to be friends with the noble dragon race? Only the Silver Witch, an unknown third-rate minor god, is qualified to be on equal footing with the dragon race.

Yvette gave an "oh," offering no comment whatsoever on its affectation.

After all, she hadn't eaten for many years, something that Dugrabi could also do, by sustaining its life with magic, but it wasn't willing to.

“Witch,” Dugrabi called out again.

"what's up?"

"Jasmine has discovered another large-scale site of ancient human civilization ruins. Do you want to come along?"

"What ruins complex?"

"I don't know, those kids said it was some kind of launch site."

"A launch site?" Yvette thought for a moment, then pulled up the pre-apocalyptic electronic map she had obtained. Combining it with the location of the valley floor, she roughly located the launch site. "Northwest?"

"You know?"

“Hmm.” Yvette looked at the information on the electronic map and thought that the launch site seemed to have quite a history. Before the Origin Civilization entered the cyber phase dominated by the eight major corporations, in the 21st century, that launch site launched a number of spaceships or probes into the universe, helping mankind to understand the situation of the Origin Galaxy.

Then it was discovered that, as a star system, the Origin Galaxy, apart from the Origin Star, a life-bearing planet, only had some very barren, lifeless, low-magic-value rock planets with extremely scarce resources, which greatly limited the civilization's desire to expand into space.

Although the known apocalyptic conditions indicate that the mutation began in the sea, where did the mysterious "divine transformation" and "erosion seeds" come from?

Yvette thought that perhaps it came from the universe.

So if she has the chance, the next time she enters a dream, she plans to investigate the space development history of the origin civilization.

Of course, it's just a superficial investigation. After all, the first priority in entering a dream is to obtain resources, and the second priority is to learn about the original owner's experiences and increase one's understanding of oneself.

Exploring the truth about the apocalypse can only be ranked third; it's somewhat important, but not particularly important.

On the other side, seeing that the witch wasn't interested in exploring the launch site, Dugrabi curled his lip and said nothing more.

It invited the witch to accompany it not so much for fun, but mainly because it was afraid of encountering mountain whales while exploring. Over the years, it had witnessed many mountain whales passing by and always harbored a fear of these sky behemoths that were several times larger than itself.

Although it might not necessarily lose in a fight, it was still genuinely wary—after all, it was restrained in its attacks against the mutants, afraid to suffer even the slightest injury for fear of being tainted, while the other side could attack it with impunity, which was a huge disadvantage for it.

However, in front of children, especially the younger ones, it still needs to show its fierce side as the eldest brother. If it really encounters danger, it will probably bite the bullet and go for it, after all, it is a matter of the face and dignity of the dragon clan.

With unyielding pride, they would rather die than be humiliated – that is the Dragon Clan!

Pulling a cart doesn't count.

Keep reading these next couple of days, everyone, and see if there's a chance to snag a spot on Sanjiang! *bowing*

Chapter 74 Inspection

After his invitation failed, and seeing that Yvette was about to return to the air-raid shelter, Dugrabi suddenly called her back and said somewhat stiffly, "What have you thought about that matter?"

"What is it?" Yvette turned to look at it, her ruby-like eyes filled with confusion.

"It's...it's that thing!"

"Oh~~" Yvette suddenly realized, but quickly turned her head and asked again, "Which thing?"

"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to!" Dugrabi was getting impatient. It was only because the person opposite him was a god that it would have given him a dragon's breath if it were a normal human mage.

How dare they mock the son of the mighty Flame Dragon King like this! They have no nerve! Even the three great human churches, which possess true gods, wouldn't dare to be so disrespectful!

“…But why would you want to become my apprentice? I should be far inferior to your father,” Yvette asked.

This time, she genuinely didn't understand.

Through Dugrabi's introduction, she had some understanding of the dragon race and knew that the six dragon kings of the dragon race were extremely powerful and could be considered the top fighting force in the human world. Ordinary creatures, or even third-rate gods with fewer believers, would find it difficult to defeat the dragon kings of the dragon race.

Among the six dragon kings, the Flame Dragon King is one of the top two strongest fighters, and can be considered the ceiling of the dragon race's combat power.

Given these exceptionally favorable conditions, it seems rather unreasonable that Dugrabi would still take the initiative to become her disciple.

Yes, even now, Yvette is unaware that, thanks to the legendary mage, she has entered the mainstream mythology of the Radiant Continent and become an obscure, unpopular deity.

She even thought that as long as she didn't bring it up, Dugraby wouldn't be able to guess her relationship with the legendary mage, and would only think that she had some connection with Rosalind Theon.

So soon, she developed a slight misunderstanding about the origins of Dugrabi's apprenticeship.

She felt that Dugrabi might be trying to use her connections to get close to the legendary mage.

This is a fairly reasonable and logical explanation.

The only thing that can refute this logic is that such a long-term strategy doesn't seem like something someone with Douglas's intelligence could come up with.

……

Faced with Yvette's question, Dugrabi was momentarily silent, unsure how to answer.

It wanted to have a lucky encounter like the legendary mage, but it didn't want to tell the other party about the legend of the Silver Witch, because that would make it seem like it had been planning this for a long time, and that all its actions over the past four years would have been deliberate and insincere.

Although it had indeed been planning this for a long time, it considered itself to be very sincere, or rather, the pride of the dragon race made it disdainful of pretense.

After awkwardly standing there for a while, it decided to make up an excuse and said, "I can't go back right now, but I don't want to waste time. I want to start learning as soon as possible..." It paused, then added, "Uh... is that not allowed?"

Yvette frowned. She thought that these words would be fine for anyone else, but not for Dugrabi. First of all, dragons can live for two thousand years, and they will be seven hundred years old when they reach adulthood. They also have the talent ability "Dragon Language Magic" that awakens with age, so there is no need to be in such a hurry.

Moreover, it is exceptionally proud of its dragon identity and looks down on humans and other species, even deeming gods as merely an equal race. Under such circumstances, it would be even stranger for it to lower its noble head and become a disciple of a human.

Besides, it seems to be a lazybones too...

However, she wasn't a stubborn person. Seeing that Dugrabi was unwilling to talk about it, she simply asked seriously, "Are you really willing to learn?"

Although she didn't have a magic terminal, based on her understanding, the magic standards on the Radiant Continent were extremely low. All spells were limited to 200 runes or less, and even the more common spells didn't exceed 50 runes.

After all, there are no element chips, rune point caches, or rune hard drives over there. Mages would have to memorize spells and chant incantations to cast them; what high-level spells could they possibly produce? The conditions simply don't allow it.

In this situation, Yvette could teach Dugrabi some basic knowledge and some minor techniques without worrying about him becoming outdated.

“Of course I mean it!” Dugrabi quickly replied.

"That's possible... but I need to assess you."

"An inspection?" Dugrabi tensed up. "What kind of inspection?"

“You don’t need to know that, but I’ll tell you when the investigation is over.” With that, Yvette turned and disappeared into the corridor of the air-raid shelter.

……

Over the next few days, Dugrabi obtained a rather difficult combat technique, which was an extremely simplified version of the Crimson Armor, roughly equivalent to turning extreme colors into minimalist lines.

Although it only has a little over two hundred runes, in the Radiant Continent where the average number of runes for a spell is no more than 50, this spell is comparable in difficulty to the legendary forbidden spells.

Dugrabi thought this was the so-called assessment, but the witch told it that it wasn't; she just wanted it to have something to do and start learning ahead of time.

What's this all about? I'm here to investigate.

Dugrabi waited and waited, but the so-called investigation never came. It found that the Silver Witch was just like any other day, sleeping until noon every day and then staying in her room all day long. Occasionally she would come out to get some fresh air and look at the scenery, but she would go back inside after a few minutes. She was even lazier than the lazy dragon prince, Dugrabi—at least Dugrabi liked to go out and play and travel around.

Could I be lying to myself...? Actually, once I master this technique, the assessment will be over?

With this in mind, Dugrabi made a rare effort.

But soon, a new problem arose—it didn't recognize runes. The first step in learning spells wasn't the spells themselves, but having the witch teach it runes to establish the most basic understanding of runes.

This is really going to kill it.

Just like learning a foreign language song, the first step is not to learn the song, but to learn the foreign language first. For Dugrabi, who has never worked hard since childhood, this is even more torturous than taking a history class.

It would rather go to history class, at least the dragonborn who taught it respected it and dared not have any objection to it sleeping in class. In the witch's rune class, however, daring to doze off would really get you beaten up.

After studying for more than two months, Dugrabi decided to take a break for a while.

Anyway, the witch said that this was not an assessment. For dragons, who take 700 years to reach adulthood, delaying it for seven or eight years is no different from delaying it for humans for seven or eight days.

Moreover, the witch herself is an immortal being, so she would definitely be able to understand it.

……

And so, time flew by, and before they knew it, it was summer of the following year. By then, a full five years had passed since the man, the puppet, and the dragon had temporarily settled there.

On a calm morning, while lying on a haystack in the main hall of the air-raid shelter, still half asleep, Dugrabi felt someone patting its nose. It opened its eyes fiercely and saw a clumsy little puppet wearing a flower wreath on its head staring at it.

"Mr. Dragon, Mr. Dragon, are you awake?" the little puppet said happily when it saw it open its eyes.

This is the mechanical puppet named Jasmine, whose character is that of a little girl. She is also one of only three children in the local kingdom. Her most distinctive feature is the flower wreath on her head, which serves as an identifiable gender characteristic.

The other two children are named "Soap" and "Roller," both boys who are a bit noisier and less likable than Jasmine.

If it were soap or a roller, and it dared to disturb its sleep, it would probably be breathing out by now. The Dragon Prince is resting; how could it allow a bunch of lowly alchemical creations to disturb him?

But Jasmine had done a lot for it in the past, and in its eyes, she was a diligent but low-level dragon servant and a half-friend. So this time, Dugrabi decided to be more tolerant and suppressed its morning grumpiness, asking in a muffled voice, "What?"

"The sun is already out, Mr. Long. Didn't you ask me to wake you up?" Jasmine's sweet voice came from the speaker, sounding very clear and crisp, like the tinkling of a wind chime in summer.

“It seems so.” Dugrabi yawned.

“We made plans yesterday to go to the base together today. The soap and the roller are already waiting outside. Mr. Long, are you getting up?” Jasmine said.

“Go out and play…” Dugrabi slumped his head and yawned again, “I’m too sleepy today, never mind.”

"Oh, alright then... I won't disturb Mr. Dragon's rest any longer." Jasmine said regretfully. After the black dragon closed his eyes, she turned and went outside to inform her two companions who had been waiting for a long time, and as expected, she received a disappointed sigh.

With the addition of the black dragon, Dugrabi, the "Cooks Family" children's expedition team's life has become much more colorful than before. The biggest change is that Dugrabi itself can function as a means of transportation, greatly expanding the scope of the children's expedition team's activities.

Before the Black Dragon arrived, Jasmine, Soap, and Roller could only play around the valley at most. With their short legs, they couldn't go very far and had to go home before dark.

But now it's different. The black dragon can carry people with all four claws and fly for tens of kilometers at a time. The three children can now explore mysterious areas that they never dared to imagine before. How exciting is that?

“Jasmine, you can talk to Brother Long, can you try to persuade it?” Roller said. “We had everything agreed upon, and then it was suddenly canceled. I’m really upset.”

"Forget it, Mr. Long looks very tired today, don't force him." Jasmine refused directly. "Roller, have you forgotten what Grandpa Copper said? You have to learn to think about others and put yourself in their shoes. This is part of cultivation."

"Okay..." Roller thought to himself, how can I put myself in his shoes? I don't even know what it feels like to be sleepy.

After sleeping in the air-raid shelter for a day, Dugrabi finally felt like taking the children's expedition team on the second day. This time, their destination was an abandoned military base.

This base is nearly 25 kilometers away from the valley where the kingdom is located. Because the surrounding environment is open and mostly flat, even if a mountain whale approaches, it can be detected very early, so the danger is not high.

Carrying three small puppets with its claws, it swept across mountains and lush meadows, and appeared before Dugrabi a huge clearing with pits in the ground, surrounded by the broken skeletons of some human buildings, and all around were moss and jagged black stones.

After landing, it put the three children down, looked around, and a look of curiosity appeared in its eyes.

It was quite interested in the history of the Land of the End, which was why it was willing to explore with these children. Although it couldn't understand the Black Tide language, with Little Jasmine explaining it to it, it was able to glimpse a small part of the ancient civilization that had been extremely powerful and like a divine kingdom on land countless years ago.

Such a civilization, to end up like this, made it feel even more deeply the terror and power of the Witch of the End. She truly deserves to be called the number one villain in mythology who betrayed the creator and destroyed the Garden of Eden, and is the undisputed king of evil gods.

Watching the three children excitedly run into the nearby ruins, Dugrabi flapped its wings and flew into the pit. This was the lower part of the military base, shrouded in mystery. Last time it came, it only took a brief look; this time, it planned to observe more.

After exploring the underground space for quite some time, several hours had passed, and Dugrabi began to feel bored. Many of the spaces here weren't designed for large creatures, and doors were often blocked, difficult to break open even with dragon breath. It decided to go up and bring Jasmine down, asking her to help it see what other secrets this place held.

But just as it was about to fly away, a strange noise alerted it. It listened carefully and discovered that it was a bizarre animal call, coming from afar, cold and drawn-out, as if from the darkest and most secluded depths of the sea, spreading a chilling fear.

In an instant, a cold answer surfaced in its mind.

—The mountain whales have arrived, and there's more than one.

Realizing this, Dugrabi's vertical pupils contracted, and it immediately stopped moving. It suddenly regretted that it had been so engrossed in its surroundings that it had forgotten to occasionally go out and check for any approaching danger. Now that the mountain whale had approached unnoticed, its best course of action to safely survive this ordeal was to hide underground until the pod left.

However, it quickly realized that the three children were still in the ruins on the surface, and most of the broken walls there were just skeletons with no roofs. If the mountain whale flew over from above, there would be very little space for it to hide.

"Damn it!" Dugrabi cursed inwardly, gritted his teeth, flapped his wings, and accelerated toward the cave entrance.